


just guys being dudes

by londer



Series: five plus ones [7]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), The Unsleeping City
Genre: 5+1 Things, Campaign 03 Season 01: The Unsleeping City, Campaign 03 Season 02: The Unsleeping City Chapter II, because of inherent binaries and sexism and being trans, its about living the childhood gender experience you missed out on, just boys doing boy things like camping and laser tag, this is not a shipfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londer/pseuds/londer
Summary: 5+1 ricky and pete doing Boy™ things
Relationships: Background Ricky Matsui/Esther Sinclair, Ricky Matsui & Pete the Plug
Series: five plus ones [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025167
Comments: 20
Kudos: 113





	just guys being dudes

Ricky catches Pete staring wistfully at a soccer game. The boys are rough housing around the goal, skinny arms shoving at each other in a riot of brightly colored pinnies and sharp elbows. Pete notices him noticing and snaps away, laughs softly. 

“Everything okay?” Ricky asks. He’s not sure, precisely, what Pete was looking at or for. He smells sad, though, and a little bitter.

“Yeah,” Pete rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and picks up their previous walking pace. “Just thinking, you know. Never really got to do, like, boy stuff, when I was a kid.” 

“Oh,” Ricky says. He knows Pete’s transgender, but he’s never really considered what Pete was like when he was younger. “Do you...want to do boy stuff? Well, obviously you do, but I mean like child boy stuff. Kid boy stuff. Boy kid stuff.” 

Pete cracks a smile and shrugs. “Maybe. I feel like a lot of it was stuff you had to do at the right time, you know?”

Ricky doesn’t know, but he nods anyways.

1.

It's truly disgustingly hot in their seats at Yankee Stadium. The game is against the Sox, so the stands are packed and buzzing with people. Pete is clearly trying to hide how excited he is, slouching in his seat and working his way through a really big hot dog, a giant pretzel, and a blue raspberry slushie that’s staining his lips and tongue.

The Yankees slam a home run, the stadium erupts in howling cheers, and Pete’s on his feet yelling with the best of them. He chest bumps the dad in the seat next to him and then Ricky, face alight and glowing as the criwd roars with them.

2.

His gym gives out guest passes, and Nicole at the front desk is super happy to help Pete fill out the waivers and stuff. They warm up with light cardio and then Ricky takes Pete through his lifting routine. Ricky’s not an expert or a personal trainer, but he suggests a bunch of exercises to bulk out Pete’s shoulders and back. Pete doesn’t complain the entire time, even though Ricky can see all over his sweaty flushed-red face how hard he’s working and how much he wants to just lie in a puddle on the floor. 

“Açai bowls,” Pete insists when they’re walking out of the doors. His hair looks pretty dumb right now, wet and plastered to his head from his shower. 

“Sure thing,” Ricky agrees. 

3.

“Hey, come check out this lizard,” Ricky says. He cups his hands and carefully keeps the little green guy in them. They’re investigating weird fae disappearances in Central Park, but this is all his check came up with.

“Oh _sick_ ,” Pete crouches down beside Ricky and pats the lizard on the head with an index finger. “Lizards are cool as hell.”

4.

It’s hot as fuck in the tent. The August humidity is thick in the air and they’ve opened all the window coverings and doors to try and get some kind of a draft. Both he and Pete have stripped down to their boxers and are sucking on ice from the cooler to try and get cool enough to fall asleep. 

“Camping sucks,” Pete says. “How the fuck do Boy Scouts enjoy this?”

Ricky grunts in agreement and rolls onto his stomach. His back unsticks from his sleeping bag in the most unpleasant way possible.

5.

“Hey _fuck you_ ,” Pete says, swiveling around a corner as his laser tag gear makes sad noises. He slams uselessly on the trigger to his gun, but Ricky hit his chest detector and he’s on cooldown.

“Don’t swear, there are kids around,” Ricky says primly, like he didn’t just three-sixty-no-scope Pete using a mirror from the floor above him. He lines up another shot on a kid in the next section of maze over and takes it. Maybe it’s a dick move to be a grown man playing laser tag, but he’s having too much fun to stop.

+1

Ricky’s fumbling with the ends of his tie. So far he’s managed two different slip knots and what looks like a cross between a noose and a full Windsor. 

“Here, let me,” Pete says, taking the slightly mangled ends of Ricky’s tie from him and quickly doing it up for him. He’s only ever done it on himself before, but Pete’s got good spatial reasoning and he quickly adapts. “Did you like, never learn?” It was the first thing Pete learned to do from a YouTube video when the Gender Feelings started coming around.

Ricky shrugs and gets a little red. “Thanks. Uh, no, I don't wear them often and when I do, usually there’s someone there to help.” 

Pete just shrugs and smiles and turns him so they’re both facing the big ugly mirror in the back room of the church. They both look really good in their tuxes, and Pete quickly triple checks that the rings and his Best Man speech are tucked into his pocket. He claps Ricky’s shoulders and tries to give him a little reassuring shake but Ricky’s so Ricky that mostly Pete shakes himself. “Well, glad I could help for your big day. You ready?”

Ricky grins and goes a little misty eyed. Big sap’s been crying about finally getting to marry Esther for the entire three months of wedding planning. If he had it his way they probably would’ve gone to a courthouse the night he proposed. “Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://myclericalromance.tumblr.com)


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